From Orange to Here... or 'After the Hotel Tried to Eat Me'

Down Home

I run out of poetry in homage to places like Orange. They treat us like gold and we love them for it. The space is huge, well equipped and and an easy load in. Their volunteers are generally good and the food they cook us is a little bit of Southern love. We got turkey and sausage gumbo, oriental salad, fruit salad, a vegetarian pasta dish, corn bread, bread, and an array of rich desserts that just make you feel a little bit better about the world.

What else can you say about that? It was a good day.

My time in Orange after that was fraught with peril and adventure. The morning we were to leave Orange my bathroom door mysteriously locked me into the bathroom. There was no actual lock mechanism on the door for me to mess with, and it wasn't just jammed shut. The knob wouldn't turn. So I was locked in the bathroom with no phone, no tools... The odd part was that I almost did take my phone in, then figured I didn't really need to keep track of time in the bathroom.

A very weird panic set in. I know I wasn't in imminent danger, but the feeling of being locked in with no real way out was disturbing and scary. I probably could have waited until people started wondering and calling and knocking but that was a long way off and the panic would not let me wait.

I remember once in a fit of temper I slammed one of the light weight doors in our house and it hit so hard that it opened and stuck in the wrong direction... I gave this door a good kick to see if that might work here too.. or at least maybe knock it open. It gave a little and, still weirded out and claustrophobic, I got encouraged and kept kicking, determined not to stay in there any longer.

Needless to say, I got out. Dramatic maybe, but I can't even describe how not-fun it was to be locked in.

After realizing what I just did, I called Libby and... she sorted everything out for me. Apparently people have complained about being locked in that bathroom before. Well. Now maybe they'll fix it.
So ended my adventures in Orange. We'll just sum on up here so that I'm no longer states behind myself in the way of blogging...
Next stop was College Station, home of the Texas Aggies. Most of the town was clean and full of money, and we spent our time in the theatre at the college and along a strip filled with food and shopping opportunities for all.

The theatre itself brought to mind a Greek amphitheatre and I had the urge to fill the space between audience and stage with..something. A moat, maybe. Don't ask me why. I enjoyed the space but I know some of the actors felt seperated and distanced from the audience.

The Rudder

It was here we managed to tighten up the show a bit. Things have been going beautifully, there's just always that time when things started to breath out a little. Here everyone tightened up the belt again (so to speak) and trimmed up the show to our snappy, crisp comedy pace. The pattern of such a long run of tour goes through different stages and the show changes every couple of weeks in slow progression...we've just come upon another wave and I can't wait to see what happens next. We had a talkback at this venue..one man asked if anyone ever got so into their role that they had to hold themselves back from punching Grandma...but my favorite question was from a little boy wanting to know what was really in Uncle Louie's black bag. Ah, the deep mysteries of the theatre..next up:

Texarkana..."It's twice as nice!"

Twice as nice as what, precisely, we're not sure yet. The Perot theatre has a pretty house, old opera style again, but the key word for the stage itself is just 'old'. We had a very early leave, almost six hour drive and then load in and show. Our van arrived with plenty of time to find lunch and get to work, but I made the mistake of forgetting that there really isn't anything to eat around town. I got peeved, drove a little frighteningly around the town until we gave up and went to Taco Bell and rolled in just in time to start. We were a little rough around the edges by the time we got there. I was, anyway. For some reason I've become a very irritable driver but...I'm working on it.

Really.

The hotel in Tex-Ark was lovely, at any rate, had a first rate breakfast, and from there we traveled on to the fine state of Mississippi...from where, if you can believe, I am actually writing now.